Captain Joel’s Fishin Holes

By: Capt. Joel Brandenburg

• We offer three types of trips in the middle keys.
• Offshore: Fishing past the reef in 650ft or less.
• Deep Sea: Fishing deeper than 650ft or more.
• Inshore: Fishing reefs, wrecks, ledges, bridges and flats.

When we get a call from someone who wants to book us for a charter fishing trip and they’re not sure what they want to do, we explain the difference between offshore, deep sea and inshore fishing. Many times Mother Nature and/or time of year determines which option is the best. We can only take up to 6 people per boat per trip, because we have a license called a Six Pack license that only allows us to charter up to 6 people at a time. Novice anglers are more likely to choose a 4 or 6 hour trip either inshore or offshore. Experienced anglers are more likely to choose a 6, 8 or 10 hour charter trip Deep Sea or offshore.

• The Offshore trips: are typically run out of our 53ft Hatteras, 45ft Hatteras or our 28ft Grady White. We recommend 6, 8 or 10 hours. We’ll troll for mahi, wahoo, tuna and kingfish with artificial and dead bait. We’ll sight cast, kite fish and/or bump troll for sailfish with live bait. Also bottom fish for mutton snapper, cobia, African Pompano, tilefish and many other species.
• The Deep Sea trips: are typically run out of our 53ft Hatteras or our 45ft Hatteras. We recommend 8 or 10 hours. We’ll troll for Mahi, Wahoo, Tuna, Sailfish and Marlin. We’ll deep drop with electric reels for Golden Tilefish, Barrel fish, Wreck fish, Queen snapper, Snowy Grouper, Yellow Edge Grouper, Black Bellied Rosies and Swordfish.
• The Inshore trips: Bridges, ledges, reefs and wreck trips are typically run out of our 28ft Grady White, 26ft Grady White, 25ft Dusky or 25ft Sea Cat. While or flats and back country trips are run in our 24ft Hanson. We’ll sight cast, flat line, anchor fish, drift fish with live bait, cut bait and/or artificial bait for mutton snapper, yellowtail snapper, lane snapper, vermilion snapper, red grouper, gag grouper, black grouper, cobia, Spanish mackerel, cero mackerel, kingfish, permit, pompano, shark, bonefish, tarpon, barracuda, yellow jack, amberjack, jack crevalle and many other species.

A lot of inexperienced anglers vacation down in the Florida Keys and have dreamed of going deep sea fishing. Many times the tourist considers deep sea fishing or offshore fishing being any fishing done in a boat off of the shore in saltwater. Our goal in describing all options to our prospective anglers is to make sure they fully understand what they are signing up for. When they understand what they’re signing up for there’s no surprises and normally there expectations are met. We attribute part of our long standing 5 star review rate to our ability to explain options and over communicate expectations with our clients. After all, our number one goal is to exceed our anglers expectations so they will refer other anglers to us and become repeat clients.

Some very experienced anglers call us up and are so specific they’ll say “we have 5 people, we want to fish for 6 hours on your 28ft Grady White and we want to fish with conventional reels only with live bait only on mutton rigs only and we want to go to wrecks and would prefer to catch a mutton snapper 15lbs or larger. We just say ok and sign them up.

Some very inexperienced anglers will call and say we’d like to catch some fish to eat. At that point we discuss options, no matter what option they choose we like to keep the rods bent and the drags screaming as much as possible, because at the end of the day all anglers experienced or not would rather catch than fish and that’s why we maintain a No Fish No Pay Policy and have for over 20 years!

— For a charter with Captain Joel or Jojo Brandenburg of Ana Banana Fishing Company in Marathon Florida Keys call cell 813-267-4401 or office 305-395-4212 or visit www.marathonkeyfishingcharters.com or visit us in person at Ana Banana Marina located at 11699 Overseas Hwy Marathon Florida Keys. Look for the big yellow Ana Banana sign with antlers around it.